Ballmer’s bow at CES short on surprises (except for that Tweet Choir)

Nokia's Windows phones, new content deals for the XBox and the pending …

Don't call it Microsoft's final CES keynote—call it a "pause." That's how Gary Shapiro, president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, tried to spin the news that this would be the last foreseeable CES keynote address delivered by a Microsoft CEO after a 14-year streak. But it wasn't so much a keynote as an infomercial talk show—rather than driving the show himself, Ballmer chose to have American Idol presenter Ryan Seacrest act as the host and interviewer for the evening.

Buried in the hour-long keynote, there were a few nuggets of news. Some of it got spilled earlier in the day at AT&T's Developer Summit at The Palms by Ballmer himself—the arrival of the first 4G LTE Windows phone from Nokia, the Lumia 900, in an exclusive deal with AT&T, though no release date was given. The Lumia 710, a 3G Windows Phone, will be the first Nokia available in the US, available through T-Mobile on January 11. Ballmer also highlighted another Windows phone coming to AT&T. the HTC Titan II, with a 4.7-inch screen and a 16-megapixel camera.

After a musical interlude in which a choir sang "tweets" people had allegedly posted to Twitter in anticipation of the keynote, Ballmer moved onto the XBox and Kinect. He announced a set of content deals for the XBox, including deals with Comcast, the Wall Street Journal, Fox, and IGN to deliver video content directly to XBox Live subscribers. Comcast will bring "the XFinity library" to XBox, Ballmer said, and others will produce original content for the platform. The content deals are part of what Ballmer described as the evolution of the XBox from purely a gaming platform to an "all in one entertainment device for your living room."

The Kinect interface got a good deal of stage time, including a demonstration of voice integration with Bing search for content on the XBox and an interactive learning game from Sesame Street. Kinect will now be coming officially to Windows, with the commercial release of the Kinect API for Windows coming on February 1. Kinect API code had previously been in beta primarily for research use; now Microsoft is working with over 200 companies to develop software for the Kinect, Ballmer said.

57 Reader Comments

"The content deals are part of what Ballmer described as the evolution of the XBox from purely a gaming platform to an "all in one entertainment device for your living room.""

This is what MS was after all along. They tried a long time ago with web tv now they've finally gotten control of the living room. You at least have to give them credit for not being afraid of playing such a long ball game. Finally after ten years they finally reached their goal of having MS control people's living rooms as well as their computers.

"The content deals are part of what Ballmer described as the evolution of the XBox from purely a gaming platform to an "all in one entertainment device for your living room.""

This is what MS was after all along. They tried a long time ago with web tv now they've finally gotten control of the living room. You at least have to give them credit for not being afraid of playing such a long ball game. Finally after ten years they finally reached their goal of having MS control people's living rooms as well as their computers.

They are not there yet. There is a lot of interesting competition shaping up with roku-like devices aplenty, smart TVs, HTPCs, and lot of people are watching more and more of their media directly on their computers. The next xbox is still a year or two away and a lot can happen in that time. The next xbox may well be the center of many people's TV room in 2014 but I doubt they will be the primary vehicle for media consumption.

The console hardware was expected to have become profitable on its own by 2008. Not sure if they hit that mark or not, but I'm leaning towards "probably."

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1) doesn't ship with a remote control

Not a traditional one, no, but it comes both with a wireless gamepad and now the Kinect interface as well.

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2) doesn't ship with wireless

WiFi has been integrated into the units for at least a couple of years now.

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3) doesn't do Blu-Ray

Arguably, nobody cares.

Discs are dying any way you look at it, and the future is all-digital content. That being the entire point of most of the announcements in the original article: more direct-to-your-TV digital content for XBL.

The newer models are also much more friendly to both USB storage and to traditional disk drives (I'm told that they no longer require proprietary Microsoft HDs, though I haven't confirmed that myself), so using an xbox for storing even a large personal library of Blu-ray quality movies should be no problem. Plus -- unlike the actual discs -- the digital content is not generally saddled with 20 minutes of unskippable promos that aren't even relevant anymore a few months after the disc is released.

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and 4) looks like a toy.

The last few iterations look no more like a toy than any other set-top box, DVD player, or DVR, in my opinion. None of the consoles do. I'd argue that my old DVD player's case design looked more like a kid's toy.

The controller of course is very toy-ish, but then that's why it actually works for gaming, unlike the "non-toy" remotes bundled with alternative devices whose manufacturers continue to try to turn into gaming devices with absolutely zero success (Roku, Apple, Google... I mean you guys).

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the success of the XBox as a "media centre" astonishes me, when you consider how low-fi it actually is.

Was. It's obviously a lot different now than it was when it was released. While the hardware capabilities have not really been upgraded at all due to back-compat concerns, the package as a whole has seen extensive updates over the years, and the OS/software has gone through several major revisions.

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The "720" and the "PS4" (or whatever they're called) will pretty obviously be media centres that run games, rather than games boxes that (grudgingly) do media.

One can argue that the 360 is there now. The only thing lacking that some might care about is the Blu-ray support you mentioned earlier. The XBox Next will have it if it makes sense; it might lack any disc drive at all, depending on what the market direction looks like in the 3-4 years before it comes out (it's about 7 years old, and both Microsoft and Sony are claiming this generation of hardware is going to stick around for 10 years). If it does come with a drive, it'll be a Blu-ray drive, and that will almost certainly be the very last iteration of plastic disc drives we ever see in mass consumer electronics. The future of multimedia is more or less already supported on the current hardware today, through the Internet.

I'm fascinated by the fact that they intend to bring Kinect to the PC. It'll be interesting to see if it's something that indie game developers will consider going to for Steam games and similar, considering the different way that you operate a computer compared to a stand-up-in-front-of-the-TV XBox 360.

"The content deals are part of what Ballmer described as the evolution of the XBox from purely a gaming platform to an "all in one entertainment device for your living room.""

This is what MS was after all along. They tried a long time ago with web tv now they've finally gotten control of the living room. You at least have to give them credit for not being afraid of playing such a long ball game. Finally after ten years they finally reached their goal of having MS control people's living rooms as well as their computers.

Yup, if you live in the US. If you live in Europe or Asia you're better off getting a PS3. Microsoft has seemingly all but forgotten that there are nations outside of North America.

Discs are dying any way you look at it, and the future is all-digital content. That being the entire point of most of the announcements in the original article: more direct-to-your-TV digital content for XBL.

You may enjoy viewing your movies at YouTube resolutions with all the skips and halts that downloads are heir to, however I prefer the beauty of full-rez (whatever that means at any given moment) and the implementation of "stop! stop! go back a bit!" which is (for me and mine) an essential part of the home movie experience.

elanthis wrote:

The last few iterations look no more like a toy than any other set-top box, DVD player, or DVR, in my opinion. None of the consoles do. I'd argue that my old DVD player's case design looked more like a kid's toy.

Yeah this can be batted back and forth. All I know is that my PS3 disappears under the TV -- guests don't even see it -- but every single person commented on my XBox 360 (when I had one). Maybe this is a "plus" in some people's minds, but I largely want my hardware to *vanish*.

elanthis wrote:

depending on what the market direction looks like in the 3-4 years before it comes out

Oh agreed! But I think it's a big jump from there to...

elanthis wrote:

The future of multimedia is more or less already supported on the current hardware today, through the Internet.

I would say "we don't know, actually" to that. '82 for CDs, '95 for DVDs, '05 (well, '08) for Blu-ray. Super Blu-ray in 2015, with 4320p (i.e. "1080 x 4")? Such a thing would be *well* beyond the bandwidth capabilities of 2015, but not beyond the screen capabilities...

But perhaps everyone will go "lo-fi is good enough" as they did (initially) with mp3s? Either way, I think it's a big jump.

Discs are dying any way you look at it, and the future is all-digital content. That being the entire point of most of the announcements in the original article: more direct-to-your-TV digital content for XBL.

You may enjoy viewing your movies at YouTube resolutions with all the skips and halts that downloads are heir to, however I prefer the beauty of full-rez (whatever that means at any given moment) and the implementation of "stop! stop! go back a bit!" which is (for me and mine) an essential part of the home movie experience.

I think you need to source better download movies. You sound like youve copied a video tape.

"The content deals are part of what Ballmer described as the evolution of the XBox from purely a gaming platform to an "all in one entertainment device for your living room.""

This is what MS was after all along. They tried a long time ago with web tv now they've finally gotten control of the living room. You at least have to give them credit for not being afraid of playing such a long ball game. Finally after ten years they finally reached their goal of having MS control people's living rooms as well as their computers.

Yup, if you live in the US. If you live in Europe or Asia you're better off getting a PS3. Microsoft has seemingly all but forgotten that there are nations outside of North America.

Apart from all the European media applications (specific to individual countries in some cases) released in Dec, of course.

One can argue that the 360 is there now. The only thing lacking that some might care about is the Blu-ray support you mentioned earlier. The XBox Next will have it if it makes sense; it might lack any disc drive at all, depending on what the market direction looks like in the 3-4 years before it comes out (it's about 7 years old, and both Microsoft and Sony are claiming this generation of hardware is going to stick around for 10 years). If it does come with a drive, it'll be a Blu-ray drive, and that will almost certainly be the very last iteration of plastic disc drives we ever see in mass consumer electronics. The future of multimedia is more or less already supported on the current hardware today, through the Internet.

3 - 4 years? I hope that rumors flying around with MS announcing next xBox at this year's E3 are true... And I also hope, that supporting for 10 years means same thing as supporting PS2 for 10 years - after PS3 was launched, there still were games being released for PS2. Heck, you can even buy a new PS2.

Personally, I didn't cared about aged hardware and that PC gamers finally got their better graphics this year, but then Battlefield 3 came out... With 24 players... We need new generation. ><

I would say "we don't know, actually" to that. '82 for CDs, '95 for DVDs, '05 (well, '08) for Blu-ray. Super Blu-ray in 2015, with 4320p (i.e. "1080 x 4")? Such a thing would be *well* beyond the bandwidth capabilities of 2015, but not beyond the screen capabilities...

But perhaps everyone will go "lo-fi is good enough" as they did (initially) with mp3s? Either way, I think it's a big jump.

HD TV penetration is still nowhere near 100%, I believe I heard around 50% (will try to find a source). Your average person finds HD, HD Ready, 3D, 3D ready confusing - yes yes, we Ars readers don't - and so I think it will be a while before there is a really big market for resolutions above 1080p outside early adopters.Plenty of people can't tell the difference between SD and HD TV (or don't care). Cable infrastructure, set top boxes, and other playback mechanisms are not ready, never mind having high enough resolution source material.

I would say "we don't know, actually" to that. '82 for CDs, '95 for DVDs, '05 (well, '08) for Blu-ray. Super Blu-ray in 2015, with 4320p (i.e. "1080 x 4")? Such a thing would be *well* beyond the bandwidth capabilities of 2015, but not beyond the screen capabilities...

But perhaps everyone will go "lo-fi is good enough" as they did (initially) with mp3s? Either way, I think it's a big jump.

HD TV penetration is still nowhere near 100%, I believe I heard around 50% (will try to find a source). Your average person finds HD, HD Ready, 3D, 3D ready confusing - yes yes, we Ars readers don't - and so I think it will be a while before there is a really big market for resolutions above 1080p outside early adopters.Plenty of people can't tell the difference between SD and HD TV (or don't care). Cable infrastructure, set top boxes, and other playback mechanisms are not ready, never mind having high enough resolution source material.

If I wear those red and green cardboard glasses and sit REALLY close to the screen, thats 3D HD right?

You may enjoy viewing your movies at YouTube resolutions with all the skips and halts that downloads are heir to, however I prefer the beauty of full-rez (whatever that means at any given moment) and the implementation of "stop! stop! go back a bit!" which is (for me and mine) an essential part of the home movie experience.

By Youtube resolution you mean 720p and 1080p?

Doubter wrote:

I would say "we don't know, actually" to that. '82 for CDs, '95 for DVDs, '05 (well, '08) for Blu-ray. Super Blu-ray in 2015, with 4320p (i.e. "1080 x 4")? Such a thing would be *well* beyond the bandwidth capabilities of 2015, but not beyond the screen capabilities...

It might be the case for the US, but most of the developed world is going to be on fiber by 2015.

HD TV penetration is still nowhere near 100%, I believe I heard around 50% (will try to find a source).

You could be right, but not one person I know has an old tube style TV (ie, Non HD). The "Own Brand" TV's sold in the UK by the big supermarkets have probably seen the end to them. (where you can buy a 40" LCD TV for about, um, £200...)

Also, the old tube TV's also need a digital STB for them to work.

In fact, outside of a kitchen, I can't remember the last time I saw an old tube style TV.

Well, much of the talk was spent on Windows 8. Most of the news was an absence of any specific plans. But, at least in the live blog, there was an indication of a new version of the developer preview in February. I am not entirely sure if this nugget was actually announced and the words developer preview used by the presenter or whether the comment came from the Ars blogger. But the initial developer preview was explicitly not beta quality code. Clearly, if they can't deliver beta quality code in February, there is no chance of seeing Windows 8 this year.

I don't get it. Who does having Ryan Seacrest appeal to? I would think the cross-section of Ryan Seacrest fans and people watching a keynote presentation for a computer software/game console manufacturer would be almost non existent.

Seems to me if Microsoft wants to move some phones they better get them to Verizon too! I have contracts making it hard to move to AT&T but Verizon only has one stupid W7 phone! I am ready to upgrade and may have to go Droid!

Yeah this can be batted back and forth. All I know is that my PS3 disappears under the TV -- guests don't even see it -- but every single person commented on my XBox 360 (when I had one). Maybe this is a "plus" in some people's minds, but I largely want my hardware to *vanish*.

And it's with a loss-leader box that 1) doesn't ship with a remote control 2) doesn't ship with wireless 3) doesn't do Blu-Ray and 4) looks like a toy.

Actually, the XBox S does come with Wireless-N built in. I'm also personally gratified that it doesn't have Blu-Ray, though I can understand why others might want it. I agree with the form factor though. I've never really been happy about their case designs, though the latest is a lot less ass-tastic than previous models.

Yeah this can be batted back and forth. All I know is that my PS3 disappears under the TV -- guests don't even see it -- but every single person commented on my XBox 360 (when I had one). Maybe this is a "plus" in some people's minds, but I largely want my hardware to *vanish*.

(It's my second PS3. I've had both systems die on me, and the PS3 is the one I replaced.)

On the topic of console was; we had an xbox and a PS3 in our sudent house, the PS3 definitely blended in more because no one ever touched it. The xbox had/s a vastly superior games library.

However if DUST (the eve spin off) is any good I might return to camp Sony. ( I loved the PS2 because... you guessed it... the PS2 had an awesome games catalouge.)

IMHO consoles live and die depending on how well they are supported by third party developers not because of the aesthetic or peripherals.

From what I gather Microsoft are becoming a nightmare to work with (making it very difficult to support your games) so they are likely to lose out on the best, well supported games. That DUST is not on the xbox and that TF2 failed so miserably on the XBOX yet enjoys such success on the pc both point to a grim future for xbox if they dont deregulate the patch process a little bit.

Well, much of the talk was spent on Windows 8. Most of the news was an absence of any specific plans. But, at least in the live blog, there was an indication of a new version of the developer preview in February. I am not entirely sure if this nugget was actually announced and the words developer preview used by the presenter or whether the comment came from the Ars blogger. But the initial developer preview was explicitly not beta quality code. Clearly, if they can't deliver beta quality code in February, there is no chance of seeing Windows 8 this year.

Pretty sure it will be beta in February. Balmer said Beta in Feb during the AT&T talk.

Seems to me if Microsoft wants to move some phones they better get them to Verizon too! I have contracts making it hard to move to AT&T but Verizon only has one stupid W7 phone! I am ready to upgrade and may have to go Droid!

HD TV penetration is still nowhere near 100%, I believe I heard around 50% (will try to find a source).

You could be right, but not one person I know has an old tube style TV (ie, Non HD). The "Own Brand" TV's sold in the UK by the big supermarkets have probably seen the end to them. (where you can buy a 40" LCD TV for about, um, £200...)

Also, the old tube TV's also need a digital STB for them to work.

In fact, outside of a kitchen, I can't remember the last time I saw an old tube style TV.

I've got one in my living room. When it goes dead then I'll get another HD 3D set.

Not to get too much into the console wars (I have them all, and enjoy them all), my 360 is used almost exclusively at this point. I don't consider myself a fanboy, but man...if a game is cross-console, there's pretty much no chance of me picking it up for the PS3.

The XBox, to me, represents the best online experience. Maybe it's a North America thing (though I suspect some of that is holdover opinion, and not really representative of how things are now), but XBox has more content than PS3. Plus, just being able to talk to my friend while he is playing one game and I'm playing another is amazing. I can run quests in Skyrim while my buddy is playing BF3, no problem. Last I checked, I still can't do that on the PS3. My PS3 is an Uncharted, God of War, and Blu-ray only machine (and I stream more than I use blur-ray, so it's even losing on the movie front these days.

Then again, I suspect it's a matter of what your friends have. Most of my gaming friends (90%+) own XBoxes. Maybe 15% own PS3s. It just isn't on the radar for everyone. My buddy got a FREE PS3, and actually gave it away to his brother because he never used it.

All in all, Microsoft's keynote was most awkward when they were talking about the whole "we expect to see you back" and "taking a pause." Awwwwwwkward. They are, however, in a year that could see the launch of a new OS, a new console, and a new generation of their phone OS around the same time. If done right, they could pretty much own the show.

Oh, and I the only one who's thinking "jesus, with all these freaking TVs running operating systems and having cameras, why the hell wouldn't Microsoft just let TV manufacturers use it for free? Seriously, with a few small revisions, it'd be the hell out of any built-in menu system, and if you have a TV that can do live TV searches and play downloadable games, you'd have a winner. Even if you limited it only to arcade games and apps, it could be a good platform.

*sigh*

Maybe I'm the only one who'd gladly have another 1/2 inch of thickness on my TV for the pleasure of never having to actually connect a 360 to it again. I mean hell, a built-in kinect would be one hell of a selling point. Oh well, maybe next generation.

Even though MS keeps making all these deals and focusing on the non-gaming aspects I haven't really seen many of these non-gaming services take off except for netflix.

The 360 is not the system to make a push into being an entertainment device, the propreitary connections, high storage costs, and live requirement hold it back. The reason for this push is that as a gaming device the 360 hit its gaming peak long ago and MS is focusing on gimmicks like Kinect, and these value added services to try to prolong the life of the console.

After letting last night presentation set in for a bit I think MS is focusing its products/marketing towards women, and that is who MS was trying to target in its presentation by having things like Ryan Seacrest, receipe sharing, "people first", seasame street, and so on.

After letting last night presentation set in for a bit I think MS is focusing its products/marketing towards women, and that is who MS was trying to target in its presentation by having things like Ryan Seacrest, receipe sharing, "people first", seasame street, and so on.

Even though MS keeps making all these deals and focusing on the non-gaming aspects I haven't really seen many of these non-gaming services take off except for netflix.

The 360 is not the system to make a push into being an entertainment device, the propreitary connections, high storage costs, and live requirement hold it back. The reason for this push is that as a gaming device the 360 hit its gaming peak long ago and MS is focusing on gimmicks like Kinect, and these value added services to try to prolong the life of the console.

After letting last night presentation set in for a bit I think MS is focusing its products/marketing towards women, and that is who MS was trying to target in its presentation by having things like Ryan Seacrest, receipe sharing, "people first", seasame street, and so on.

My personal experience is quite the opposite. Last.Fm through my sound system is used quite frequently at my place. It fills the entire apartment with music, and it doesn't cost a damn thing. I'm an outlier (cable cutter w/ only internet service), but I use the ESPN app for about an hour every morning, and when I get home. The XBox IS my media station.

Now, if they get Spotify? It's all about what your needs are. If Microsoft threw a cable tuner in this puppy and let people use the full Media Center (rather than just being used as an extender), it'd be the best DVR/media center on the market. Having access to digital content as well as stored broadcast content, with a (in my opinion) nice interface? Yeah, I'll take that.

No other console comes close to beating it as far as a media center replacement, and no other media center comes close to beating it as a gaming device. Well, at least that's my opinion. I've tried using my PS3 with VLC/XMBC/insert media center software here, but honestly? The only reason my PS3 is seeing any use whatsoever right now is that I left my XBox power cord at someone else's house. I very rarely have a reason to use it.

Oh, and I the only one who's thinking "jesus, with all these freaking TVs running operating systems and having cameras, why the hell wouldn't Microsoft just let TV manufacturers use it for free? Seriously, with a few small revisions, it'd be the hell out of any built-in menu system, and if you have a TV that can do live TV searches and play downloadable games, you'd have a winner. Even if you limited it only to arcade games and apps, it could be a good platform.

*sigh*

Maybe I'm the only one who'd gladly have another 1/2 inch of thickness on my TV for the pleasure of never having to actually connect a 360 to it again. I mean hell, a built-in kinect would be one hell of a selling point. Oh well, maybe next generation.

I agree with you very much here. With the HDHomeRun Prime, a (now very over-taxed & cranky) dedicated HTPC to do the tuning work, and what most would consider a crazy number of Xboxes in the house, I've realized my dream of delivering TV via CAT-6 to any TV in the house we want. I had hoped that by now Microsfot would have gotten in cahoots with at least one decent TV maker to embed Windows Media Center extender functionality. I would gladly pay the price of a whole Xbox on top of the TV cost to have that software built in.

Cutting down on the Xbox boot-up, then WMC startup times alone would be worth that to me/us. All of the other benefits like power/noise cutbacks & the need for either a controller or yet another Harmony everywhere would be icing on the cake. Sure, I used the logic of "we can pay the same amount for an Xbox instead of a dedicated extender, AND we get the added bonus of all the other things an Xbox can do" to use them as extenders, but there are just some places where we wouldn't/don't need to be able to play games & whatnot. Most of those other things can be taken care of by the TV direclty now (Netflix, for example).

Nulls wrote:

After letting last night presentation set in for a bit I think MS is focusing its products/marketing towards women, and that is who MS was trying to target in its presentation by having things like Ryan Seacrest, receipe sharing, "people first", seasame street, and so on.

Seems to me if Microsoft wants to move some phones they better get them to Verizon too! I have contracts making it hard to move to AT&T but Verizon only has one stupid W7 phone! I am ready to upgrade and may have to go Droid!

I sat on my upgrade since September waiting for a Win7 phone announcement for Verizon. I finally said "screw it" and went iPhone last week. If there are new phones available by the time my next upgrade comes around I'll jump on board, but damn...

After letting last night presentation set in for a bit I think MS is focusing its products/marketing towards women, and that is who MS was trying to target in its presentation by having things like Ryan Seacrest, receipe sharing, "people first", seasame street, and so on.

I actually read this as targetting families rather than wimminz.

Seabass, is there to 'normalise' it like xfactor or American idol or whichever one he presented.

Sesame Street is no more for women than men unless you have a very particular view of women's role in society, a view that is increasingly outdated.

Recipe sharing, this helps everyone particularly if you have to cook for a familiy.

I just dont see this as effectively targetting women in particular aside from the 'housewife' role.

Sean Gallagher / Sean is Ars Technica's IT Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland.